Park Nicollet's marketing has a touch of 'flash'

When Park Nicollet rolled out a new marketing campaign earlier this year, the hospital system stepped out in a big way -- a TV ad during Madonna's halftime show at the Super Bowl.

The ad showed adults and kids jumping around, doing sit-ups, lifting weights, working on the computer. Their bodies were covered in scrawl that listed Park Nicollet's range of clinics and medical services, as a toe-tapping "we've got you covered" jingle played.

"I want our marketing not to look like traditional health care marketing," said Paul Dominski, chief of marketing and human resources at Park Nicollet and a former executive at Target Corp.

Not long ago, health care organizations might have viewed such overt brand marketing as unseemly. But as consumers get choosier about where to spend their health care dollars and competition heats up among pharmacy chains and big-box retailers, hospitals are finding it necessary to invest more to promote themselves.

Hospitals, clinics and medical centers spent $1.6 billion on advertising in 2011, a nearly 18 percent jump from the year before, according to Kantar Media. Even the Mayo Clinic, which for decades relied on reputation and word-of-mouth referrals, was one of the top advertising spenders, according to Fierce Finance.

"The more you need to differentiate your business, the more you have to consider creative marketing," said Mark Morse, co-founder of the Bloomington ad agency Morsekode, which has a growing list of health care clients but has not done work for Park Nicollet.

Hospitals are beefing up their mobile marketing by making their websites accessible to smartphones, tablet computers and laptops. Many have hired staff to pepper social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter with information.

For Park Nicollet, the new marketing campaign is part of a broader rebranding effort by the scrappy smaller player, which lags behind HealthPartners, Fairview Health Services and Allina Health in market share by revenue. The organization aims to draw attention to its 26 clinics as well as its TRIA Orthopaedic Center, the Melrose Institute for eating disorders and the Frauenshuh Cancer Center.

"When we sat down with focus groups, people knew we had Methodist Hospital, but they didn't know what all those other bits were," said Dominski, who came to Park Nicollet in 2009 at a time when the recession had forced layoffs and Park Nicollet was searching for a new CEO.

The Feb. 5 Super Bowl ad was a last-minute purchase of a local spot, and cost as much as a billboard campaign, Park Nicollet officials insist. It kicked off a six-week blitz on local television and zoned cable TV.

"We needed to do something that would put them on the map," said Steve Sikora, co-founder and creative director of Design Guys Inc. in Minneapolis, which designed the marketing campaign. "People didn't understand the scope of their offerings. This idea of writing all over patients' bodies is wonderful and hysterical at the same time."

Flash mobs in white scrubs

Park Nicollet teamed with the radio station KS95-FM and hit the metro area with "flash mobs" of dancers. They descended from the stands at a University of Minnesota basketball game and fanned out to perform a line-dancing routine at several regional malls, all dressed in white scrubs covered in the same scribbled messages promoting the Park Nicollet clinics and services.

Sikora said the edgier campaign is unusual for nonprofits, whose smaller budgets and conservative viewpoints can sometimes lead to "less adventurous thinking."

Part of that may be the influence of Target, the No. 2 U.S. retailer.

Dominski rose through the ranks of the Minneapolis-based retailer mostly in human resources. His senior director of marketing at Park Nicollet, Melissa Schoenherr, also worked at Target.

While Dominski is quick to say that marketing health care is far different than marketing tea kettles and summer dresses, Target's imprint on the organization is clear -- from the way Park Nicollet employees now are called "team members" to Dominski's desire to create a marketing campaign for Park Nicollet that will "surprise and delight."

"It's hard not to be influenced by Target and its focus on the brand," Dominski said. "We've talked about how do we differentiate ourselves, how do we focus on the patient, how do we focus on design, how do we focus on team? Those things are solid business fundamentals that are standard at most organizations, but especially at Target."

The unveiling of the new marketing strategy comes after Park Nicollet spent the past year focusing internally on what makes the organization unique.

Out to change the culture

CEO David Abelson ruffled some feathers in a 2010 internal blog post in which he highlighted surveys where patients described the experience at Park Nicollet as "mediocre." While its medical care earned top marks, Abelson challenged the organization to overhaul its culture, from the executives in the C-suite to the workers keeping the floors buffed.

To that end, Park Nicollet brought in ethnographers and anthropologists who followed patients and their families, shooting 15 hours worth of videotape to document the patient experience.

Dominski said once the patient surveys proved that employees have risen to the challenge, it was time to start marketing to the outside world.

With an annual budget of $1.2 million dollars, about 0.1 percent of revenue, Park Nicollet has redesigned its website, including adding a user-friendly section that offers a real-time check of how long the wait will be at any of Park Nicollet's urgent care centers. It also tapped Dominski's "small but mighty marketing team" of about 10 people to redesign a quarterly magazine focused on women's health that has attracted the eye of advertisers.

The "Got You Covered" campaign is just a warm-up to a bigger blitz to come in May, Dominski said.

"We're climbing the hill," he said. "We're trying to do things that are fun, low cost and a little disruptive. What we're trying to say is that something different and special is happening at Park Nicollet, and you should pay attention."

Jackie Crosby • 612-673-7335